


shut the fuck up trashmouth: the tour

by tjmcharg



Series: shut the fuck up reddie [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Comedian Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, Famous Richie Tozier, Fix-It, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier's Stand Up Act, Stand Up Comedy, The Losers Club Love Each Other (IT)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23322043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmcharg/pseuds/tjmcharg
Summary: Following his public breakdown almost two years ago Richie Tozier is back!For the final show of his comeback tour the comedian who has won his way back into the spotlight is here for your entertainment, now streaming on Netflix!Is there something for Richie to come out and tell us all?Who are the mysterious friends he seems to have reconnected with?Watch as Richie 'Trashmouth' Tozier reveals all in his best-selling tour "shut the fuck up trashmouth"!
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, minor - Relationship
Series: shut the fuck up reddie [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740160
Comments: 35
Kudos: 405
Collections: ||My favorite fics||





	shut the fuck up trashmouth: the tour

**Author's Note:**

> for canon reference everything from IT chapter 2 happened but stan was there the whole time and though eddie did get stabbed he didn't die from it 
> 
> hope you enjoy!!

As the lights dim the crowd explodes in a frenzy of eager screams and applause. The Losers glance at each other with amused smiles already pulling at the corners of their mouths; there is something endlessly entertaining about the wild excitement of the teenage girls beside Eddie, unaware they are sitting side by side with the performer’s husband. At the idea that this loud enthusiasm is for one of their best friends. 

Richie’s voice echoes over the loudspeakers, booming in a half-assed impression of a football game announcer. 

“LINCOLN CENTRE PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR THE ONE, THE ONLY, RICHIE ‘TRASHMOUTH’ TOZIER!” 

The noise of the crowd soars until Eddie is tempted to cover his ears to muffle the sound - he would have too, if not for feeling the need to applaud just as loudly for the grinning comedian strolling onto stage. 

“Hello!” Richie says loudly as he reaches the microphone stand, prompting another eager round of applause.

“Woah woah,” Richie laughs, running a hand through his hair, “You people are applauding way too much for what will likely be an exquisite waste of your money.”   
An appreciative laugh ripples through the crowd and Richie turns a full grin towards them, all crooked teeth and dimples.  
“You think I’m joking but I’m deadly serious. You people have paid at minimum thirty  _ dollars  _ to see a middle aged man with a shorter attention span than a goldfish and the maturity of a thirteen year old boy talk to you for over an hour. This is quite possibly the worst financial decision you’ve made in your life.” 

Richie pauses and pointing up and down the rows says, “So don’t you dare complain to me about it, you fuckers signed up for this shit.” 

He struggles with pulling the microphone out of its stand for a moment before muttering, “There is no point putting it in that thing I swear to god.” The audience chuckles and Richie shrugs, picking up where he left off, “No but really, me talking? Not worth a thing.” Eddie grins as he remembers the endless rants Richie would go on in their childhood, the rambling and the teasing and the stream of words constantly flowing from the boy’s mouth; if Richie talking cost money the Losers would be stone cold broke. 

“You know what I can appreciate?” Richie asks the audience, pausing as though waiting for their response before continuing, “My best friends are here tonight. My six favourite people in the whole wide world, they’re here, and they didn’t pay a cent for it. They know what this shit’s worth. I appreciate that, I really do.”   
The audience practically buzzes with laughter, The Losers’ chuckling joining the mix at their call out. 

“The idea of them paying to watch me talk is laughable really. Honestly, with the amount of talking I subjected them to I probably owe them money at this point!”   
He nods adamantly at the audience as they laugh, “It’s true! Wherever you losers are I’ll pay you after the show. One dollar per dick joke, that should only be oh… let’s see… a couple million or so.” 

Bill is the first of the Losers to crack completely, letting out a loud guffaw of laughter.

“So here you are, pockets emptied to watch a washed up comedian talk to you, and I’ll be honest with you Lincoln Centre, I didn’t want to be here.” The audience hums gently with a confused brand of laughter. “I’m serious!  _ You _ have a public breakdown on stage and see how quickly you want to come running back to the spotlight!”   
Eddie sees Mike slump sheepishly in his chair from the corner of his eye and turns to give him a reassuring smile. 

“I wasn’t planning on continuing comedy, but my husband convinced me,” Richie’s words stutter to a halt as the audience surges with a round of applause. A flush rushes across Eddie’s face, creeping up the back of his neck as the applause continues, Bev’s elbow digs between his ribs teasingly as the other Losers cheer along with the crowd, Ben going so far as to wolf whistle. Richie is positively beaming onstage, he seems to light up under the praise being sent Eddie’s way. 

“I can’t tell you how much that response means to me,” Richie admits when the applause finally dies down, soft and genuine for a moment; this is the Richie that Eddie sees on the daily, blurred around the edges and warm to the touch, still loud and teasing but honest and true. 

“That was a very different reaction to the  _ first  _ time I said that on stage though,” he laughs, slipping easily back into his stage persona. “The straight, white demographic my ghost writer had roped in were  _ not  _ impressed with my new rebranding.”   
Richie leans to the side as though he’s an audience member talking to their friend during the show and stage whispers into the microphone. 

“Did he just say husband?” 

Turning the other way he whispers back. 

“Is Trashmouth gay now?” 

In a deeper whispered voice he pretends to lean over someone and adds, “I’m just here for the mental breakdown, what’s all this gay bullshit?” 

Eddie snorts loudly along with the audience’s hearty laughter.   
Richie smiles, returning to his usual tone, “So the applause is pretty amazing! Even if it’ll go straight to his big head.” Richie smiles at the audience knowingly as if he was looking directly at Eddie, and he scowls on instinct. Stan chuckles at the look on his face, extending his beer towards him as though saying ‘cheers to that’ and swallowing a gulp. 

“As I was saying!” Richie returns to the main topic with a laugh, “My husband is to thank for the fact that this special even exists. I was telling him how I was considering giving up comedy when he launched into a definitely pre-written speech about how I couldn’t stop, not when I hadn’t even shown the world my true comedic skill and bla bla bla talent bla bla bla very cute and touching. Only he can prove whether or not I cried so I can tell you I did not cry whatsoever and whatever he tells you is a lie, never trust a man who owns a briefcase this is spies 101.” 

“But he was right! I’ve never gotten the chance to be funny in my own way, not to a large crowd anyway, and now that my repressed childhood and trauma came surging back to me in a horrifying vomit-inducing-on-stage-kind-of-way,” he pauses a moment to let that information settle into the audience with a chorus of nervous laughter, “I have childhood best friends to tell embarrassing stories about on stage!”   
A more comfortable laughter begins as the crowd seem to realise that Richie won’t be diving into the depths of his trauma onstage and they can relax once again. 

Meanwhile the Losers glance at each other nervously, an apprehensive excitement settling in Eddie’s bones. Even as kids he had always known Richie was funny - though he never would have admitted it - and he was funniest when drawing on real people and experiences, teasing the Losers was something he was good at, and Eddie would be lying if he said he wasn’t interested to see where Richie would take this. 

Richie takes a gulp of water, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand absentmindedly.   
“Basically aforementioned repressed childhood meant that I didn’t even remember the existence of my best friends, and so I didn’t see them for an entire twenty-seven years. Yeah, trauma’s a bitch, what else is new?” He shrugged in a ‘what-can-you-do’ manner. 

“But  _ now, _ ” he sing-songs, “I  _ do  _ remember my best friends, and boy oh boy do I have some tales for you!” 

Stan groaned lowly, a concerned noise that resonated with all The Losers. 

Richie leans away from the microphone slightly, his voice pitching upwards and gently muffled, “But Mr Trashmouth! What do these friends of yours look like?” He asks shrilly before returning to his normal tone with a smirk, “Well random voice that definitely wasn’t me, I’m glad you asked.”   
Reaching into his jacket pocket Eddie has to squint to see the projection clicker he pulls out, holding it up to show the audience more clearly Richie waggles his eyebrows. 

“That’s right everybody strap in, the Ted Talk begins right now.” 

A picture of the Losers appears on the white screen behind Richie that Eddie had previously assumed was for aesthetic purposes; The photo was one they had taken the day Eddie was released from hospital and their smiles are wide enough to showcase it. It’s the photo that every single one of them has set as their wallpaper, Eddie sees it a hundred or so times a day, and yet he still finds himself smiling fondly at the image on the screen nonetheless. He’s not alone in this reaction, all six Losers in the audience are smiling widely, beaming at each other and Richie on stage as their smiling faces are reflected back at them; Even Richie turns to look at the photo with a bright smile then turns back to the audience and sighs dreamily. 

“Aren’t we cute?” He coos. 

He waits another moment, giving the crowd the chance to look at the seven faces before continuing to speak.   
“I mean look at those handsome faces up there! I’m talking about this guy not those other bozos,” he scribbles over all the Losers faces except his own using the clicker.   
“Yeah that’s right,” Richie nods slowly, “They trusted  _ me  _ with a pen, onstage, with my friends faces at my disposal.”   
He pauses, dramatically turns to look at the photo then turns back to the audience with a giddy smirk, stroking his chin thoughtfully. 

“Now let’s make that terrible decision worth their while.” 

As he clears the scribbles from the faces of the Losers Richie monologues seemingly mindlessly, beginning to draw what is very obviously the tip of a dick on Stan’s cheek. 

“Admittedly trusting me with a pen is better than my original desire, which was a laser pointer,” he draws the shaft of the penis, “They gave me one too! I was thrilled!” Eddie spares a glance at Stan and almost chokes on a piece of popcorn, the exasperation of the glare Stan is sending towards the stage enough to kill a man.   
“However my husband walked in, and I kid you not.” He draws two testicles resting against Stan’s jawline, “I kid you not, he takes one look at me with the laser pointer in my hand and just says ‘no’, just no!” Richie is smirking to himself as he adds detail to the dick on the screen.   
“I can’t blame him though,” he shrugs, adding a hair to the bottom of one testicle, the audience is howling with laughter at this point. “In my attempts to prove how trustworthy I was with a laser pointer I shone it in my eye. Final conclusion: I should  _ not _ be trusted with a laser pointer.” 

Eddie giggles into his palm despite the sort of irritated fear that had filled him at the time.   
“This is how I know I married my true soulmate though, because when he saw this drawing pointer thingy they gave me instead.” He brandishes said clicker once again, clearly satisfied with the completed dick drawing, “He barely drew a breath before telling me to draw a dick on Stan’s face.”   
Stan spins to glare at Eddie heatedly, the fond laughter in his eyes detracting from the otherwise terrifying stare.   
Richie smiles boyishly as the audience falls apart in stitches. 

“He’s the one,” he sighs in an exaggerated besotted way, once a sort of calm settles over everyone once again. The sentiment sends a fluttering through Eddie’s chest, he doesn’t think he’ll ever tire over hearing Richie’s confessions of love; not now, not twenty years down the track. 

“I got distracted!” Richie slaps his hand lightly, chastising himself. “My friends. Best people ever, my family, we’re the cutest.” Richie points at the photo to prove it.   
“But as cute as we are now, this photo is not the one I am going to use to tell you about my family, because though I  _ could _ talk to you about them accompanied by a photo that shows off their dashing good looks, successful jobs and at least partially put together lives… I think it would be best to tell these stories with the sweet accompaniment of us in our  _ youth _ .” 

Ben lets out a deep sigh as the image is switched by Richie to be one of the Losers during their teen years. The photo was taken on Stan’s camera and Eddie remembered there being at least ten others just like it where they were unable to get everyone in frame before the timer clicked over. The photo Richie chose was the singular successful shot they managed to take.   
“Oh yeah,” Richie croons, rolling his shoulders slowly in a mock sensual dance, “There’s the awkwardness I’m going for! The acne, the limbs too long for our bodies, the uncomfortable positioning of hands in photos, I say as though I’m not describing my current life too.” He gives the audience a moment to laugh and take in the photo before continuing, “No prizes for guessing which one is me.” 

Eddie smiles fondly at Richie in the photo, all messy curls, coke-bottle glasses and crooked teeth; his skinny arms wrapped around a young Stan and Eddie, squishing their cheeks together as he laughed. Stan and Eddie both look equally disgruntled in the photo, however if Eddie squints he can see the beginning of a blush spreader across his younger-counterpart’s cheeks. Stan however looks like he was plotting a murder, not unlike the look he had offered both Eddie and Richie only moments earlier. The rest of the Losers were similarly tangled together in hugs and smiles. 

“You do however get a prize, if you can guess which one is my husband,” Richie raises an eyebrow knowingly as the crowd mumbles to each other.   
“Do I get a prize?” Bev mutters under her breath, sending the Losers into a fit of giggles.   
“Yeah that’s right,” Richie says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his hawaiian shirt, “I didn’t mention that did I? One of these awkward Losers with a capital L is the man I’m madly in love with. Didn’t see that one coming did you?” 

He waits with eyebrows raised as though waiting for a guess before raising his hands in surrender.   
“Alright, alright, I guess I should help you out a little bit.”   
He draws a circle around Bev, her red curls falling across her face as she grins, leaning into Ben’s side.   
“If you guessed this majestic creature right here, you’re either very stupid, or think I’m still joking when I say  _ husband. _ ” The crowd laughs loudly, along with the Losers. 

“No New York, this is not my husband, this here is Beverly, Bev for short, and she is my hero.” 

The audience lets out a resounding “Awww,” as Richie beams up at the photo of young Bev.   
“She is my  _ hero _ , not because she’s kind, or smart, or generous, or strong, although she is all those things.” Richie shrugs as the audience applauds his words. “Don’t tell her I told you that, she’ll realise I’m going soft.”   
Eddie spares a glance at Bev as the audience chuckles and can’t help but smile at the loving and genuine smile she is unconsciously sending towards the stage. 

“No Bev is my hero because she once punched a guy in the dick,” Richie says simply. The audience collapses into hysterics and Richie laments, “It’s  _ true _ ! She’s my hero! She punched this asshole  _ directly _ in the dick and it was  _ beautiful _ .” 

“He deserved it too.”

“We had a bunch of dickheads in our town, shout out to Derry, Maine for being an absolute shit hole,” Richie falters and grins as the Losers whoop in agreement, “Shut up you assholes I’m doing a thing,” he chuckles and the audience laughs, realising that he’s talking to the very friends on screen.   
“Derry is a special kind of place and by that I mean it was the child murder capital of the world when I was growing up… Oh I’m truly sorry for making you uncomfortable Lincoln Centre! Maybe consider that I was a  _ child  _ who actually  _ lived  _ there and you’re a member of an audience who’s only  _ hearing  _ about it! You’ll survive!” The audience applauds through laughter and Richie glows in the praise. 

“So in Derry we had a bunch of dickheads, like, 70s movie teenage drama level dickheads. These guys were homophobic, racist, sexist dirtbags rolled up into mullet-headed buff teenage boys and they were the  _ worst _ .”   
Richie waltzes across the stage, shifting the microphone from hand to hand.   
“They picked on me and my friends constantly, because we were scrawny nerds with anything from speech impediments to hidden homosexuality. But the specific incident I’m talking about, it was just me and Bev. This one mullet’ed douche waltzes up to us and in one fell swoop obliterates both of our insecurities in a taunt which I won’t repeat because Netflix will never allow it. Just know it covered slut-shaming and homophobia in one fell swoop. They were assholes, sure, but they were good at the asshole trade.”   
The audience laughs as Richie continues pacing, walking from one side of the stage to the other. 

“I shrunk into myself because well,” he gestures to the photo behind him, “look at me, I couldn’t do shit with those chicken wing arms.” Eddie lets out a hack of a laugh, the other Losers following close behind.   
“But Bev? She wasn’t letting any asshole say that shit to her, and by extension me. She sashayed, she didn’t walk, she  _ sashayed  _ up to this guy and in a purr said to him ‘do you want me to touch your dick?’ And let me tell you this guy was drooling in seconds, he went from angry to horny faster than I could blink. Keep in mind he was getting about as much action as I was, and I was a virgin until reconnecting with my childhood-love-turned-husband at age forty okay? This guy was getting  _ zero  _ action.” The audience barely had time to draw breath through their laughter before Richie was plotting on. 

“So Bev asks him if he wants her to touch his dick and I was like ‘the  _ fuck _ ?’ But I didn’t say shit because of the chicken arms I mentioned earlier. Douchebag nods like a goddamn bobble-head doll he just-” Richie mimes his head bobbling dramatically, tongue lolling out of his mouth like a dog on a hot summer’s day, the audience howls with laughter.   
“And Bev, darling Bev, without missing a beat, punched him so  _ hard  _ in the dick even I was sympathetic for the guy.” 

The Losers along with the rest of the audience are collapsed in on themselves, clutching their stomachs in wheezes but Richie takes no pity on them, continuing his tirade.   
“She punched him so hard my own balls shrivelled up in agony. She punched him so hard I don’t reckon the guy could reproduce later in life. Beverly punched this guy so goddamn  _ hard _ in the dick he doubled over and started to cry and she didn’t even flinch.”   
Richie pretends to wipe away a tear. 

“She’s my hero.” 

The audience are finally given a chance to catch their breath as Richie picks up his water bottle and takes a heavy gulp. He chuckles as the crowd continues laughing and mutters, “She’s a goddess amongst us mortals I’m telling you,” before taking another sip. 

“But not my husband,” Richie points out, reminding the audience of the continuing search for the ‘mysterious husband’. 

“And unfortunately for me,” Richie continues, circling Ben’s face pressed between Bev and Bill, “Neither is this cutie.”   
Eddie mouths, “Unfortunately,” through incredulous laughter as Richie keeps speaking.

“Look at that face! I wouldn’t be so lucky as to have someone as nice as Ben be even slightly into me let alone married to me.” The audience chuckles. “You think I’m joking but Ben is a catch.”   
Eddie rolls his eyes just as Richie says, “I can tell my husband is rolling his eyes at me right now, but he knows I’m right. Babe, take a look at Ben and tell me I’m not right.”  
He glances at Ben over Bev purely to indulge Richie, the man in question blushing so hard he seems to be stained red.   
“He’s gorgeous!” Richie laments, “If Ben asked me, I would marry him without a second thought, he’s just that kind of guy. I don’t feel afraid to say that because I know my husband would probably do the same.” 

“He’s shrugging in agreement New York, I don’t need to see him I know he is,” Richie says knowingly, Eddie tries to lower his shoulders without any of the Losers noticing but the knowing smirks indicate he failed to hide the movement.   
“What’s that babe? You think I look incredibly handsome in this shirt and you love my massive dick?” Richie fans his face as though he’s a Victorian Belle who has gotten flustered by a suitor’s comments. “Well that’s flattering love but I don’t think this is really the time or place!” Richie hushes his voice on the last few words as though speaking only to Eddie and the audience erupts into joyous laughter. 

Eddie shakes his head muttering, “I hate him so much,” through laughter, the fondness crinkling his eyes taking any malice out of the words.   
“Sure you do buddy,” Stan calls from across the other Losers, still laughing at Richie’s dramatised impression of Eddie. 

Richie continues on his set as though he never went off topic, “I can’t even make fun of Ben he’s stuffed up the whole show, this is actually terrible.” The audience laughs and Richie shushes them.  
“You don’t understand. I had this plan, for every friend I would tell funny stories and mean jokes and then I would finally get to my husband and you would all be like hooray!” He claps awkwardly with the microphone still in his grasp. “But you can’t make fun of Ben! He’s too good of a person! It’s terrible!”   
He paces across the stage angrily before stopping with a foot planted into the wooden floor and a pivot on his heel. Now facing the audience Richie speaks again. 

“I’ve changed my mind, there is one thing I can say about Ben. He is the kindest person to ever exist and he is an asshole.” 

The audience and the Losers splutter a surprised laugh, the sentence taking a turn nobody saw coming. 

“He is an  _ asshole! _ ” Richie laments, gesticulating wildly to get the point across. 

“I‘ll tell you why he’s an asshole, it’s because in my life I’ve learnt you’re allowed to have two of three things and no more.”   
Richie counts them off on his fingers as he lists, “You’re allowed to be a likeable person, have a successful job or be attractive.  _ Two  _ or  _ less  _ New York.” 

Eddie finds himself chuckling already along with much of the crowd, already guessing where Richie was going with this spiel.   
“This asshole not only is  _ all damn three _ but he’s  _ so  _ good at every one of them! I only got one! No guessing required as to which!” 

Richie clicks back to the more recent photo of the Losers and zooms in on Ben to prove his point.   
“This asshole is a lovely, overall wonderful person to be around and he has  _ that  _ face?” He says, turning to the audience with a pained expression. “What the fuck?”   
Then gestures to his own face pitifully and repeats to emphasise the point, “What the fuck?” 

He glances at the screen then back to the audience and repeats this one or two more times before pointing to the photo with a high pitched screech of, “That is  _ illegal _ !”   
Eddie looks over at Ben to see him slip a hand down his cheek from where it was covering his face, laughter forming tears in the corners of his eyes.   
“He’s going to be put in jail for that jawline because he accidentally hurts someone!” 

Richie puts on a voice as though he is a middle aged female filling out a job interview.   
“So Sir we see in your criminal records that you were jailed for cutting off a man’s arm with your…” he pretends to squint at a sheet of paper, “perfectly sculpted jawbone?”   
As the audience laughs Richie continues, “It also says that when he started screaming you flashed your,” he adjusts his glasses to pretend they’re reading glasses, perching them on the end of his nose and peering through them, “ _ baby blues  _ at him and he cut off his other arm as a gift to you because he didn’t want you to have an unfinished work.” 

The audience howls with laughter. Bev is wheezing so hard that she’s doubled over at the waist, and Ben’s attempts to haul her back into a sitting position are futile because he’s having equally as much trouble catching his breath through laughter. 

“That’s only the tip of the iceberg though! ‘Cause not only does he have  _ that  _ face,” Richie throws his hand towards the screen wildly, “He’s a goddamn talented architect who makes amazing houses  _ and _ he’s a lovely person! He’s the triple threat when I was under the impression that the double threat was unattainable! Disgusting!”   
He strides ‘angrily’ across the stage as the audience tries to keep their laughter under control. 

“Also!” Richie spins on his heel when he reaches the right side of the stage. “He’s happily married to Miss Punch-A-Dick over here!” He zooms in on Bev’s face as Mrs Punch-A-Dick herself laughs so hard she almost chokes, clutching Eddie’s arm like a lifeline.   
“They’re so in love it’s disgusting, I hate them so much and I’m so happy for them.” 

Richie moves the focus back to Ben’s face and groans lowly, rubbing his eyes as though he has an intense migraine coming on.   
“He’s so hot,” he says as though in pain.   
“No one in here can disagree with me on this, everyone is attracted to Ben. It’s like Chris Hemsworth, there is a glitch in sexuality when it comes to Chris Hemsworth and my friend Ben. No matter who you’re typically attracted to, you see them and your brain just goes,” he puts on a nasally robotic tone, “Bzzt! Hot! Hot Person!” He returns to his usual tone, “And you can do nothing about it!” 

He looks at the photo again and groans again.   
“I have to move on from Ben he’s making me so mad. I could talk about how unfairly amazing he is for days. New plan Lincoln Centre! Cancel the comedy show I’m going to talk for an hour about how hot Ben is, you’ve already bought your tickets so it’s too late to escape now.” 

As the audience laughs Richie chuckles along with them, switching back to the photo of the Losers in their adolescence. 

“Okay fine! Let’s keep this trend going of friends that are hot yeah?” As the audience applaud in agreement Richie beams, sending a pang of affection rushing through Eddie’s body.   
“Okay you guys, let’s see if you’re smarter than you look.” At the offended laughter that follows that comment Richie shrugs, smirking in his amusement.   
“Prove me wrong!” He challenges while the audience laughs. “Okay so, you’re gonna rule out this next one for me. My husband is as white as I am pasty… did you rule anyone out?”   
Mike, who had made the unfortunate decision to take a swig of his beer at this exact moment, chokes on it in his laughter; only serving to make the other Losers laugh harder as Bill weakly slaps his back in comfort through his barks of laughter. 

“If you didn’t get it right,” Richie says cooly, circling Mike’s face with an exaggerated flourish, “You’re probably the same idiots who guessed Bev at the start of all this and frankly, I don’t know what to tell you.”   
An enthusiastic laugh echoes through the centre and Richie chuckles.  
“Mike is one of those people that I have grown to accept is, and will always be, incredibly hot. He was probably my gay awakening.” Richie zooms in on Mike’s face, “I mean, look at that bullshit. He was thirteen in this photo, he looked that  _ attractive  _ at age  _ thirteen _ , that’s meant to be  _ impossible _ .”

Eddie peers over the few Losers between him and Mike to see Bill and Stan jostling him teasingly at Richie’s comments, his facial expression a complicated combination of his attempts to seem unamused at their actions and laughter from the jokes.   
“I have never looked that good in my entire life and he looked like that when he was at the awkward gangly age of thirteen and puberty was just starting to hit him in the balls harder than Bev could have punched him, absolute bullshit, but I’ve come to terms with it.” 

Richie shrugs loosely.   
“Mike looked that good when we were thirteen and I was a closeted homosexual stuck in a homophobic small town in Maine, yeah you do the math.” The audience laughs appreciatively.   
“Mike was the guy I would look at and go ‘objectively he’s attractive but I’m not gay, the fact that I have a boner is unimportant and irrelevant’ and we would move on with our day because I was  _ repressed _ .” 

Eddie has to lean into Bev’s shoulder for support as he shakes with laughter. 

“Mike, just like Ben, is too nice of a person to make fun of at any moment, ever. So I’m just going to talk about how hot he is because I’m gay, leave me alone, don’t be homophobic.”   
As the audience laughs Richie takes another sip of water. 

“He didn’t even peak at age thirteen though! Then a ridiculously attractive thirteen year old would be bearable! But he only got better, like fucking fine wine or some bullshit.”   
Richie does the same as he did with Ben and clicks back to the more recent photo of their group of friends, zooming in on Mike. 

“Look at that fucking chiseled hunk of muscle! How dare he look like that when I’m the glass of milk someone accidentally left on their counter overnight?” 

Richie sighs, leaning down and swallowing a large gulp of water.   
“Look at him, making me thirsty, it’s disgusting.” Mike snorts loudly at Richie’s fake gag.   
“Okay but I would absolutely hook up with Mike, like no jokes, no bluffs, 10/10 would smash.” Eddie can hear the amused laugh from Mike and semi-offended, semi-amused “Hey!” from Bill.   
“I wouldn’t marry him though, only because he was a librarian and I don’t have that kink,” Eddie lets out a laugh so hard he almost chokes on it. “But if he was down to-” he makes a crude gesture and the audience laps it up, laughing until Eddie is sure some are struggling to breathe “- I would be so up for it.” 

“He wouldn’t fuck me though because he has standards. Gods won’t do the do with ugly commoners, unless they’re Zeus, but we don’t talk about Zeus.”   
Eddie frowns at his comment, the Greek mythology reference almost enough to make laughter slip through, but not quite. 

Richie smiles sheepishly, “Some people are concerned about my husband’s opinions on the ‘ready to have sex with our friend’ thing, I can tell. I can promise you he’s currently very angry about one of my jokes and it was actually the one where I called myself ugly and none of the crude shit that prefaced it. He probably wants to fuck Mike too.” 

Eddie allows a chuckle to slip through as Richie blows an exaggerated kiss at the audience in Eddie’s general direction.  
“Whether that’s for Mike or my husband, no one will ever know,” Richie teases, winking slyly.   
He settles back into his laughter with the promise to himself to have a talk with Richie later about just how handsome he is. 

Richie threw his hands in the air, “Alright fine! Some people are getting sick of the endless rants about how hot my friends are, I get it. You can’t blame me!” He gestured wildly towards Mike’s face again before switching the photos back to the younger Losers. 

“Let’s move on, I’ll never stop talking about this if we don’t move on.” 

With a chuckle he erased the circle around Mike and instead circled Bill.   
“We are removing Big B-B-B-Bill from the running for my husband. That’s right, I went for the stutter joke, sometimes the low hanging fruit is just  _ right there. _ ” Bill lets out a guffaw of laughter so loud it sends the rest of the Losers into similar hysterics. 

“This is the man who actually  _ does  _ have the librarian kink,” Mike lets out another loud snort, “And for those of us who can’t read between the lines, that’s right, this skinny twink with the coiffed hair married reborn Hercules over here.”   
Eddie gasps through his laughter, barely managing to wheeze a “twink!” As he leans into Bev who is similarly leaning into Ben. 

Richie grins saying, “These two are a match made in heaven, between the two of them they’ve nearly gotten us all killed on at least three separate occasions.”   
The audience’s laughter is significantly more hesitant at that comment, as they glance in concern at their companions, but the Losers more than make up for the quiet laughter with their own raucous giggles. 

“No I’m  _ not  _ going to elaborate on that!” Richie says gleefully, his voice pitching upwards on the ‘not’ so he sounds jovial and full of energy.   
“My therapist told me I shouldn’t.”   
That draws a more enthusiastic laugh from the audience. 

“I feel bad for Billiam though,” Richie shakes his head forlornly, strolling across the stage with one hand buried in his pocket as though attending a funeral.   
“But why Mr Trashmouth?” Richie asks in the same high pitched voice from earlier in the special.   
Richie looks up at the audience, a laugh twitching at the corner of his mouth, “I’m glad you asked, mysterious voice. I feel bad for Bill because he tried  _ so  _ hard in school.” 

He leaves a pause long enough that confused laughter begins to break out amongst the audience as they wonder whether that was the punch line. 

He raises his eyebrows, still not expanding on his comment, but instead taking a sip of water as the laughter continues to spread throughout the crowd.   
“He tried so hard in school! Bill was smart! He was a clever kid and he worked so damn hard and I feel bad because he was smart and he was my friend,” the audience laughs and Richie holds up a hand to stop them. “You’re getting ahead of me, your laughter is preemptive, I can guarantee what you think I’m going to say is incorrect.” 

“The reason I feel bad, Lincoln Centre, is because Bill, after working so damn  _ hard  _ at school, had to come to graduation and watch me,” he pauses and bats his eyelashes dramatically, “get valedictorian.”   
“No, no, don’t applaud,” Richie says to the silent audience, prompting a round of laughter and wild clapping, to which he gives an exaggerated bow.   
Bill boos loudly, cupping his hands around his mouth and failing to successfully jeer through his laughter. 

“Can you  _ imagine  _ though? God that must have  _ sucked. _ ” Richie lets his head loll backwards on the last word, voice going gravelly and hoarse to emphasise the point. The audience laughs heartily. 

“It would’ve sucked so much more for Bill than anyone else who was working hard, because he was my friend, so he knew I was an idiot.” Richie walks from one side of the stage to the other and then back again, wild gesticulating to accompany his story.   
“I’m sure everyone else just assumed that, sure, I was a class clown, but that I must work hard in my spare time. Bill  _ knew  _ that wasn’t true!” The Losers laughed along with the crowd. 

“Bill watched me walk across that stage,” he walks slowly recreating the steps in the present. “Knowing full well I was the idiot who tried to snort crushed pop rocks only three days before.”   
The audience let out a disbelieving bark of laughter whilst the Losers doubled over at the memory. Sure, Eddie remembered being mostly terrified Richie was going to die at the time, but looking back, it was hysterical. 

“Ah pop rocks,” Richie sighs, a hint of nostalgia in his tone. “No one tells you it’s a gateway drug until it’s too late and you’re eighteen trying to snort them like cocaine because your friend said you couldn’t.” He shakes his head sadly. Eddie notes the hint of a smirk on Richie’s mouth as the audience falls apart with laughter.   
“It should be noted that Stan was wrong, I could snort crushed pop rocks, I just couldn’t keep them snorted.” 

“On that note, let’s move on to Stan, mostly because anything more I say about Bill is going to turn into another rant about how hot my friends are and nobody can deal with that shit for a third time.” Richie shrugs. 

He suddenly barks a laugh, pointing to someone a few rows behind Eddie and says, “That guy agreed so quickly,” he says through laughter. Grinning as he takes a sip of water he continues teasing the guy, “He was like,” he nods his head seriously, “What an icon.”   
“Look you’ll be running to apologise once you get a dad bod and all your friends look like they jumped right out of the comic books you read when you were a kid. I expect to receive a call alright Buddy?” The guy must agree because Richie grins and huffs a laugh again, shaking his head in his amusement. 

“I love that,” he breaths, still chuckling to himself, “God I hate to break it to that guy but we haven’t even gotten to my husband yet and he’s the real hottie.” He grins and with a shrug returns to his set 

“I will admit to you Lincoln Centre, I’ve been stalling, you’re  _ not _ as dumb as you look,” the audience lets out gently offended laughter, “I know when I asked you to guess which one of my  _ very hot  _ friends is my husband you would have guessed one of these two,” Richie draws a box around Stan, Richie and Eddie’s heads smushed together. 

Eddie smiles fondly at the photo, it captures the three of them perfectly. Their cheeks squishing into their smiles because of how they were pressed side to side, Stan’s eyes rolled to the sky as he clearly tries not to laugh, Richie’s skinny arm holding him in a pseudo-headlock. Eddie’s eyes on Richie and no one else, a soft blush on his cheeks from their close proximity, laughing at whatever dumb comment Richie had clearly made. Though Richie is smiling directly at the camera, crooked toothed and glasses skewed, Eddie could almost guarantee there would be a version of this photo where their positions are swapped. Richie’s eyes trained on Eddie and him, unnoticing and smiling at the camera.   
That was how they worked back then, always seeing one another and nobody else, always missing by a few seconds. 

He draws his attention back to Richie as the audience shrieks with laughter. 

“He was my buddy!” Richie emphasises whatever point he just made and has to pause to allow the audience to settle before continuing to speak. 

“There is nothing I can tell you about Stan that would better describe that asshole, than the story I’m about to tell you.”   
Eddie leans forward to glance at Stan, finding him wearing an expression of what Eddie would consider to be an appropriate amount of fear. 

“We were fourteen, Stan invited me to his house to watch tv, and I had no reason to be suspicious about this invitation because we were friends. I get there, it’s all fine and dandy, Stan turns to me and says ‘I wanna show you this program’ and I was like ‘yeah, why not’, because once again, no reason to be suspicious.  _ Right _ ?”   
The audience is listening patiently, Losers included, as Richie sets up the story. 

“So Stan puts in a VHS tape - god I sound so old,” Richie bemoans, holding a hand to his forehead dramatically. “He puts in the tape and we start watching a documentary about, I shit you not, worm mating cycles.”   
Richie pauses, looking out at the audience as though assuring them that this is the full truth; laughter echoes around the large theatre. 

“Now let me give you some context, you know by now that me and my buddies were losers with a capital L.  _ Losers _ ,” Richie emphasises the ‘L’. “We owned the bridge we were going to get bullied on, which isn’t how the saying goes but you get it. 

“So Stanley, Staniel, Stan the Man, his capital L, Loser trademark ‘thing’ was being Jewish - oh not what you thought I was going to say? - I mean that’s what he got relentlessly bullied for.”   
“His secondary ‘thing’ was birds -  _ is  _ birds,” Richie amends, “So altogether, worms weren’t that far out of the ballpark; and I was an asshole but I wasn’t  _ mean _ . So, I watched the worm mating documentary with Stan, because Lord knows, he might have been enjoying it.” 

A long pause follows Richie’s words, Eddie feels the suspense buzz in his bones.  
“We watched worms having sex for  _ two hours _ .”   
Surprised laughter splutters out of Eddie’s mouth, along with the rest of the audience. He follows Bev’s movements to stare at Stan incredulously, but he won’t meet their eyes, laughing with an unapologetic twinkle in his eyes. 

“My eyes were glazed over, I sat in total boredom with the slightest of fascination as the most monotonous, droning voice explained the technicalities of the worm mating cycle to me,” Richie takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“And Stan, my buddy, the boy who made me sit through that shit. When the two hours were complete, he stood up, turned off the VHS, didn’t even bother to wind that shit back, and turned to me.”   
Richie pauses again. Raises his eyebrows at the audience, tipping his head down so he’s peering over the frames of his glasses. 

“Lincoln Centre I’m now going to repeat the words Stanley said to me that day.”   
Eddie is enraptured in the story, and he isn’t alone. As he glances to his right Bev is leaning forward in her seat, an amused smile already tugging at her lips though she doesn’t know what’s coming. On his left, the girls are staring wide eyed at Richie, eagerly clutching each other’s arms. 

“Stan turned and he said to me ‘Richie, tell me honestly, how did you feel while watching that documentary?’ and because as I said before, I was an asshole but not a mean one I was all nice saying like, ‘oh it was interesting! It was good!’ and Stan  _ cut me off  _ and he said, ‘no Richie, you were bored.’ So _obviously_ I gave in and was like ‘Yes Stanley! I was so motherfucking bored! I haven’t been that bored since before I started masturbating dude!”   
Eddie smiles fondly at the uncanny impression Richie does of his younger self, high-rising intonations, dumb jokes and all. 

“Do you know what Stan said to me Lincoln Centre? Do you know what he fucking _said_?” Richie implores of the crowd.  
He turns on his side, pretends to fiddle with knobs on an old television set before standing and facing the audience, embodying the essence of younger Stan whether the crowd of Lincoln Centre knew it or not. 

“That boredom, is how I feel every time you tell a joke.” 

Richie staggers backwards as though shot in the chest, clutching a hand to his heart, microphone hanging limply in his grasp. The crowd erupts with raucous laughter. Eddie almost loses his grip on his beer from the force of his shoulders shaking. 

“How fucking savage is that?” Richie exclaims into the microphone. “We were _fourteen_!”   
He has to stop talking and wait for the audience to recover as they howl and Eddie notices the proud grin on the corners of Richie’s lips.  
“You’re laughing but I don’t think you’re appreciating the depth of this insult. Stan watched two hours of worm porn that he didn’t even enjoy! _Just_ to roast me!” He gives the audience barely seconds to recover before continuing his tirade. 

“I can’t even blame him but god  _ damn _ . Even in the few decades where my memories of Stan were repressed that insult never left me.” 

“It’s safe to say Stan may be the reason I had a ghost writer for so long, I was just too scared to write my own jokes after having my ass handed to me by a fucking  _ fourteen-year-old _ .” 

Richie chuckles to himself and finally gives the audience a reprieve by leaning down to swallow a mouthful of water.   
“So luckily for me, Stan isn’t my husband.”   
The audience chuckles as they finally calm from the hysteria that followed Stan’s roast. Eddie leans forward to look at Stan, who is doubled over with his red cheeks buried in his hands, Bill’s teasing fingers poking at him relentlessly. 

On stage, Richie grins lazily, stuffing a hand into the back pocket of his jeans and waltzing across the stage.   
“Now Lincoln Centre, some of you have gotten ahead of me. I can see you doing the math in your heads.” 

He accompanies his next words with mimicked frantic glancing from side to side, “If it isn’t the badass girl, or the skinny twink, the hot librarian, the triple threat,  _ or _ the savage jew then that means…” he trails off. 

Richie grins wolfishly, “That is correct you clever bastards. My husband is the mini shorts-wearing, fanny pack adorned, perfectly coiffed, pipsqueak of a boy right there.” Richie circles Eddie’s face with a flourish before turning to the audience with a fond sigh.   
“Isn’t he adorable?”   
The audience laughs loudly at that and Eddie is torn between being offended and laughing along with them, settling for a combination of both. 

“My husband and I got off to the smoothest start to our romance. I confessed my love to him and he punched me in the arm, called me an asshole, then promptly fainted from bleeding out.” The audience laughs hesitantly, which Eddie can understand, and once again the Losers make up for their hesitation with wild laughter.   
“Did I forget to mention my husband was clinically dead for three minutes?” Richie asks innocently, drawing a more genuine (albeit nervous) laugh from the crowd. 

Richie waves his hands, “Relax, you’re allowed to laugh. He’s definitely laughing, because he remembers calling me an asshole when I said I loved him and then fucking  _ dying on me _ .”   
Eddie snorts into the palm of his hand, his breathing laboured as he shakes with laughter.

“That my friends,” Richie points to the photo of young Eddie. “That right there is the love of my life, Eddie Kaspbrak. Or his given name, Eddie Spaghetti.” 

“I have been in love with that little hypochondriac since I was ten years old and can you blame me? Look at that fanny pack!” Richie grins as the audience laughs generously.   
He shrugs, “We’ve had discussions about him wearing a fanny pack to bed, and by that I mean I have begged him to wear it and he refuses to indulge me, which is just plain  _ rude _ .” Eddie’s body shakes with uncontrollable laughter as Richie crosses an arm over his chest, pouting like a toddler having a tantrum. 

“I have this dream scenario of Eddie coming up to me a-la-Titanic and just saying,” Richie drops his voice into a sultry purr, “Richie, my sexy husband, I want you to draw me with your limited artistic talents wearing this fanny pack…” He rolls his hips, “Only this fanny pack.”   
Richie whistles, fanning his face dramatically, “I would probably nut right there and then.” 

He sighs heavily, shoulders rising and falling, “I love him even if he won’t indulge my kinks.” 

He gives the audience a short reprieve as he dawdles across the stage, turning the microphone in his palm.   
“I need you to have a very clear picture of Eddie okay? My husband is basically a very large amount of rage and neurosis compacted into a very small packet.” The Losers laugh harder than anybody else at the description.   
“He’s always been 180 pounds of hypochondria in a 140 pound man and he speaks like someone has given him forty seconds and for every word he says he gets twenty dollars. I love him with all of my heart, he calls me an asshole as a term of endearment, yada yada yada, you get the idea.”   
Eddie buries his head in his hands, laughter and embarrassment shaking his body as the audience falls in stitches around him. 

“Eddie has literally always been a neurotic little asshole, I’m sure you’ve heard of feral raccoons breaking into houses, but you’ve been misinformed, it was just my husband. He’s a feral raccoon with the mouth of a  _ sailor _ .”   
As the audience chuckles Eddie cups his hands around his mouth and hollers at the stage, “Shut the fuck up asshole!”   
Richie’s face splits into a grin so bright Eddie feels he should look away, if only to save himself for being blinded.   
He barks a laugh and gestures absently towards the crowd.  
“You see?” 

Eddie grins up at the stage and ignores the girls sitting beside him who had just made the connection as to who he was, and are staring at him with the wonder and embarrassment which that revelation deserved. 

“One time I had to set Eddie’s broken arm- it doesn’t matter why -” the audience laughs at Richie’s flippant gesture as he skims over the details.   
“- And that feral raccoon swore at me so much, I felt like I should’ve washed my ears out with holy water afterwards; and it may surprise you, Lincoln Centre, to hear I wasn’t exactly the poster child for innocent youths.”   
Eddie has to smother giggles into the palm of his hand when Mike lets out a snort loud enough to turn some heads. 

Richie shrugs, running a hand through his hair. 

“So you have some understanding of Eddie’s personality.” 

“This imagery is important because I implore you to think about me, and my personality, and consider that I actually  _ have  _ matured with age.”  
He nods sagely as cackles bounce off the walls of the theatre.   
“So combine this,” Richie gestures to himself, “but dumber, with the neurotic package of rage…” He scratches at his head to draw out the pause.   
“Yeah we were a nightmare duo.” 

He bends down with a groan and sips carefully at the water, giving the audience a moment to settle. 

“And!” Richie exclaims once the glass was safely out of his clutches, pointing a finger to the sky as though a mad scientist having an epiphany.   
“You forget that we were also pining heavily throughout the better part of our childhood.” 

“Eddie’s idea of flirting was shoving his dirty feet in my face and stealing my glasses, my idea of flirting was constantly telling him that I was fucking his manipulative, overbearing mother. Neither of those techniques worked but I mean… they kinda did, didn't they?” 

Richie winces, “Now that I think about it Eddie and I owe a formal apology in written form to every one of our friends for the shit we put them through. Bearing witness to that every day? A horrifying thought.” He shudders violently to emphasise the point and chuckles reverberate around the room.   
“Honestly I think the only reason we’re still alive is because Ben was too lovely of a person to let Stan murder us.”  
Eddie watches Stan shrug with a laugh on his lips. 

“Our love language is essentially brutally teasing each other until one of us gives up and we makeout, it’s amazing, but I think you’re starting to get an understanding of how Eddie ended up in a loveless marriage with a woman and I was a virgin until the age of forty. You know, aside from the internalised homophobia.” 

Richie wrinkles his nose at the audience’s chuckles and says, “I know some of you want me to expand further on the ex-wife situation, but all you really need to know is that Eddie saw me for the first time in decades and immediately remembered he was gay,” he fist pumps the air, “ultimate compliment.”   
“The divorce followed promptly after.” 

“I still find that crazy,” Richie says, his tone humorously self deprecating. “He took a look at  _ this  _ and went ‘oh shit I’m a homosexual’ I mean interesting standards but I scored.” 

The audience laughs loudly and Richie shakes his head solemnly. “No Lincoln Centre you don’t understand, I seriously scored.”   
“Where’s that guy, the guy who was excited when I stopped talking about how hot my friends are, wave at me dude,” Richie squints into the crowd. The guy must wave because Richie’s face splits into a shit eating grin and he twiddles his fingers in a mock wave towards the patiently waiting audience.   
“You my friend, are about to be sorely disappointed,” he says with a voice that says he is anything but sorry. 

He clicks the button with a dramatic flourish, whirling the contraption through the air. The photo slides over to be replaced with one of Richie and Eddie’s personal favourites. It’s just the two of them, cuddled together on Bev’s couch, Eddie between Richie’s legs and their poses mirroring each other; from their deadpan expressions to their fingers flipping off the camera.   
Richie smiles proudly as the audience applauds and whistles through their laughter, and Eddie finds himself copying the expression. 

“Look at that hunk of man right there,” Richie swoons. “Sure he’s a  _ small  _ hunk of man, but he makes up for it with sheer wow factor.” 

Richie stares at the photo for a few seconds before spinning on the audience and saying with pointedly wide eyes, “And he married  _ me _ ? With that jawline? And those  _ abs _ ?” Richie circles the sliver of Eddie’s stomach showing from where Richie’s hand had shucked up his shirt, then circles it once, twice, thrice more for emphasis. The audience chuckles. 

“Funny story about the abs actually,” Richie says casually, the audience follows him on his tangent with eager ears and wide smiles.   
“This story takes place when I first had a little mingle session with his dingle if you catch my drift,” Richie offers a comically large wink and Eddie drops his face forward into his hands to groan pathetically; much to the amusement of the other Losers.   
“We had seen each other shirtless  _ plenty _ when we were kids… as I say that out loud I realise how weird it sounds,” Richie’s voice climbs in pitch on every word until he’s singing the final words of the sentence.   
“We went swimming a lot when we were kids,” he amended the sentence, “Young Richie was very appreciative of seeing Young Eddie shirtless, but this did nothing to prepare Old Richie - I’m old now guys I can accept that - for the abs that were hidden under Old Eddie’s shirt.” 

Richie runs a hand down his face, expression pained as he admits, “So the first thing I said, when I had finally scored enough to get Eddie’s shirt off is…” he hesitates and cringes in preparation, Eddie is wheezing with preemptive laughter, remembering vividly what Richie had said.   
“I said…” Richie repeats, leaving a long dramatic pause before sighing and biting the bullet, practically yelling into the microphone. 

“Holy fuck! You’re as toned as Aquaman!” 

The audience falls apart into stitches, the laughter so loud it rings in Eddie’s ears and forces Richie to stop his story telling. The Losers are no better off than the rest of the audience in their hysteria; Stan has snorted beer out his nose from misjudging the right time to take a sip, and the rest of the Losers are torn between laughing at him or laughing at Richie and settling for a cackling mess of both. 

“Shut up!” Richie groans over the laughter of the audience, “Shut up! I mean it! I went into gay panic and was running on my back up brain system! Don’t judge me!” 

Richie chuckles and waits patiently for the audience to settle, only continuing when the hysterics have been reduced to a quiet simmer of chuckling.   
“To this day I don’t know why Aquaman was my first choice of comparison and not like… Captain America. Like Chris Evans is right up there with Ben in terms of, now that’s a man  _ anyone _ is willing to be stabbed by if he asked nicely enough. At least it would be a reasonable comparison. But no, Aquaman.” 

“Although… at least my weird comment is better than my husband’s,” Richie says flippantly and the audience hums with anticipation and amusement.  
“No,” Eddie whispers, horrified. He stares at the stage as though if he wills hard enough he can stop Richie from saying what he knows he is coming.   
Richie rolls his shoulders with a knowing smirk. “That’s right Lincoln Centre, he beat  _ Aquaman _ .” 

“So we get back into the mood after Eddie finishes laughing at me and slowly the pants are taken off. Do you know what he said to me? Do you know what he said, Lincoln Centre, when he put his hand on my dick?”   
Eddie sinks into his seat, Bev’s jabbing fingers and sharp elbows doing nothing to deter him from his mission of disappearing from this room through the floor, immediately or soon after. In fact, disappearing from the face of the Earth is preferable to hearing Richie’s teasing voice imitate him perfectly, pitch for pitch, repeating the words Eddie had said on that fateful night. 

“Why the fuck do you have a big dick?” 

Bev lets out a squeal of laughter and Eddie merely sinks further into his seat, groaning into his hands as his face burns red hot.   
Richie has to pause a moment to snicker into the back of his hand, “This sounds like a compliment but the tone was anything but. He was horrified by the size of my dick.”   
The room is alive with laughter and through his mortification Eddie feels a swell of pride in his husband, he always knew Richie was funny, but this room, this energy was proof. The audience is laughing until tears fall and their sides ache and that’s all Richie’s doing. Eddie hides his smile in the heel of his palm. 

“That comment  _ was _ explained to me, so I will do the same for you. Essentially, Eddie was horrified that all the joking I did as a teenager about having a big dick, was not in fact ‘making up for something’ but was based on hard evidence.   
Richie smiled conspiritavely, “At first he was not a fan of this revelation… I found a way to change his mind,” Richie winks again and the Losers let out a unanimous groan, turning a few heads.   
With a chuckle that told he knew exactly the reactions his friends would be having Richie changed the topic. 

“Eds didn’t want to tell the other Losers we got together at first because according to him ‘the fact that I’m attracted to you is the most humiliating thing I could ever tell them’ which is true love right there and _incredibly_ flattering. Unfortunately for him they found out by our fucking obvious flirting when we were like _thirteen_ and also the slightly revealing making out they walked in on not ten minutes after the second confession,” Richie shrugs with an amused smirk.   
“You know, the one where he _wasn’t_ dying of a potentially fatal wound. After he woke up in the hospital.” 

“Now that we’re out, we’re basically the couple everybody wishes they were but nobody really wants around.” Richie tucks a hand into his pocket. “You know that couple, ridiculously in love and ridiculously loud about it, so happy that you want to punch them for it? Sometimes I feel like I should punch myself in the face, just to apologise to every person that has to interact with us.” 

Richie mimes punching himself in the face, spurring a chorus of amusement from the audience.   
“I feel like I deserve to be disgustingly in love with him though, considering when I was younger I wasn’t  _ allowed _ . I was so damn in love with Eddie as a teenager but I was even more determined that he never found out.” 

He huffed a laugh, throwing his microphone into his other hand.   
“You wanna hear what that little shit subjected me to?”   
The crowd whooped in agreement, applauding Richie’s strutting across the stage. 

“In our childhood we had a clubhouse, it went against about three thousand safety permits - something Eddie went on about more than four times a week - and if you touched the wrong pillar the wall fell in. In that clubhouse, we had a hammock, and it was the only properly comfortable spot in the clubhouse; so because of that there was a rule to the hammock, ten minutes each, I was a little shit and didn’t follow that rule. Although, in my defense none of us did; especially Bill, he was almost worse than me.”  
The other Losers eagerly jeer and throw teases at Bill through their laughter as he splutters indignantly. 

“Eddie didn’t abide by the rule either, and he didn’t care about anyone else not following it, but  _ me _ ? My spitfire, asshole of a crush would force his way into that hammock with me, every time I went even a second over time, to prove a point.”   
Richie shakes his head fondly at the memory. “You can imagine the kind of gay panic I was going through as Eddie practically sat in my  _ lap _ ; and when I panic, I talk, a lot. I use humour as a defense mechanism.” 

Richie pauses, raises an eyebrow and mutters, “Wow who would’ve guessed it.” 

“It was in this hammock that Eddie came up with the catchphrase that would be heard for the rest of our lives. An iconic sentence that’s adaptable to almost any time I so much as open my mouth.”   
He builds the suspense, “When I was running my mouth with every stupid joke coming to mind just to avoid coming to terms with the overwhelming gay feelings heading straight for my dick, he need only say this one liner.” 

“And Eddie isn’t the only one using this phrase Lincoln Centre, no no, Stan probably has it tattooed on him somewhere. It’s basically the extent of his vocabulary.” 

Richie changes the photo back to the one of them when they were young; all smiling adolescent faces and arms thrown over shoulders and around waists.   
“If ever there was a time that I was talking too much, so basically every second of every day, from age thirteen to now. My friends, my husband, my favourite people in my life, they just turn to me and simply say…”

“Shut the fuck up trashmouth.” 

Richie delivers the line confidently and with a degree of finality about it; like he’d said it a hundred times before and knew this was the last time. The delivery meant the audience wasn’t left to wonder whether that was the final line of the show, Richie’s tone enough to tell them so. Through the laughter Eddie could sense the audience’s tinge of disappointment to be leaving and just the thought made his smile widen. 

“Thank you Lincoln Centre you’ve been great!” Richie shouts over the mirth.   
Everyone erupts into raucous applause and laughter and Richie beams at them, raising a hand in a goodbye.   
Bev leaps to her feet and the other Losers quickly follow, prompting a standing ovation that rings around the theatre. Mike sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles loudly. 

The look on Richie’s face is priceless. Eddie desperately thinks for a moment that he should capture this, he should be able to look at his husband’s face in this moment for the rest of eternity, before he remembers that this is a Netflix special, and he actually can.   
Richie blows kisses at the audience dramatically, milking the last giggles and laughter out of them as he walks backwards.   
His confidence is misleading. Eddie can see the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, notices the way his smile shakes with overflowing joy and emotion. 

Richie walks off the stage with a casual wave and a smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first work in the IT fandom so i hope i did these characters justice 
> 
> im going to be making this into a self indulgent sort of series so if you want to leave suggestions for some little follow up fics and follow for more that'd be really cool! 
> 
> i'm on both twitter ([frecklylance](https://twitter.com/frecklyIance)) and tumblr ([frecklyylance](https://frecklyylance.tumblr.com/)) so if you wanna come chat with me i'd love to hear from you!  
> thanks for reading!!!


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